Expecting
by Meme-Ann
Summary: COMPLETE!!Everyone is always expecting something from Adam and until now he's satisfied everyone. When Carly tells him she's expecting a baby, he does the last thing anyone expects. He leaves her.
1. Not good news

~*Don't own the Ducks duh. Would love to own Banks and Portman but Disney won't share. Sam, Griffon and Sierra are mine, Cat is Cat's, and Emily and Delilah are Nicci's. See we're friends and we share. This story takes place after Poet Among Ducks, it's now senior year.*~  
  
  
  
  
  
Adam Banks stretched with a smile as the early morning sun was beginning shine through his dorm room window. It was the first day of senior year and he was the best mood imaginable. He received an acceptance letter a week before from Stanford, his girlfriend Caroline had come back from Boston very late the night prior so he'd be seeing her for the first time in a month that day, he had finally got his father to stop telling him he was a screw up and the Ducks were playing better then ever. Life was great; if nothing changed for him for the rest of his existence he'd be content forever.  
  
"Get up Luis." He flew to the window and tore the curtains open.  
  
"Damn it Banksie, why do you feel the need to wake up at dawn?" His roommate and teammate Luis Mendoza grunted into his pillow.  
  
"It's 7:00 A.M. Luis and we have to meet Carly and Emily before the assembly." Banks bounded over to his bureau and pulled out a perfectly pressed white oxford shirt and dark blue slacks.  
  
"Dude lay of the crack." Luis put his feet on the cold hardwood floor and grimaced at the cold sensation on his bare feet.  
  
  
Meanwhile  
  
  
"So how was your vacation?" Emily Boyer stood at the full-length mirror in the room she and Carly Epson shared.  
  
"Boston's Boston, I would've rather stayed here with Adam." Carly held a light green blouse up to her chest as the color picked up the red highlights in her hair.  
  
"But if you didn't go home for the month, you never would have had the romantic night on the town."  
  
"Yeah well, I wouldn't say it was that romantic."  
  
"Oh come off it Caroline Epson, you know as well as I do that was the best night of your life."  
  
"It was a night that changed my life." Carly observed thinking back to the night in question. Adam had taken her to dinner at the best hotel in the area and rented a room upstairs. In retrospect that night had changed her life it was her first time. Everything had changed that night. "Don't call me Caroline."  
  
"Exactly. Sorry I forgot only Adam could call you Caroline."  
  
"How was France?" Carly had something on her mind and thinking about Banksie was only making it worse.  
  
"Terrible, my mother is a psycho bitch, her new husband Karim is scum and the most arrogant pig I have ever met. And if they made me eat escargot one more time, I was set to puke."  
  
Puke was precisely what Carly did she ran to the half bath the girls shared and prayed to the porcelain god for twenty minutes.  
  
"Are you okay?" Emily stood against the doorframe pulling her honey colored hair into a bun as Carly's gagging subsided.  
  
"Yeah I'm fine, I've been doing that for a week now, I can't control it." Carly spat while brushing her teeth.  
  
"Maybe you should see a doctor."  
  
"I did, yesterday before I get ready to go to the airport. They're calling with my results around fourth period. Will you cover for me in Calc? I've got to be in here to answer the phone."  
  
"Sure no problem."  
  
A few minutes later there was a knock on the door and Adam and Luis walked in with ear-to-ear grins. The four got reacquainted and with morning kisses and headed off to the auditorium, meeting up with Portman and Samantha and Charlie and Cat on the way.  
  
"Great, since you all decided to stay in the dorms last night, they'll be no one crashing through the curtain this morning correct?" Cat looked sternly at Charlie who blushed slightly.  
  
"We would've been fine if Goldie knew how to skate, babe." Charlie wrapped his arm tighter around her waist.  
  
"Why do I not think it was entirely Greg's fault?" Samantha asked not believing it at all.  
  
"I'm not getting dragged into the office for something I didn't do this year." Luis declared  
  
"It was really. Banks bail me out buddy you were there. And it was freshmen year people!"  
  
"No way Charlie, Goldberg is bigger then you, I'm on his side." Adam held the door open for the rest of the group and then walked in to find a seat towards the back. He pulled Carly into his lap as the dean began his yearly rah rah; ask not what your school can do for you, but what you can do for your school speech.  
  
"I love you." Banks whispered in Carly's ear, his breath tickling her neck.  
  
"I love you too Hun." She snuggled into his chest and waited for the address end.  
  
Along with her nausea Caroline was also becoming increasingly tired. By the end of the speech she was sound asleep on her boyfriend's lap in spite of the fact she'd only been awake for an hour. Adam's arms were so comforting that being in them could put her to sleep no matter what was on her mind at the time.  
  
"Hey Sleeping Beauty." Banks kissed her cheek gently and her eyes fluttered open  
  
"I fell asleep?" Carly's voice was groggy and her eyes slightly unfocused.  
  
"Yeah, are you alright?"  
  
"I think so, just a little tired."  
  
"Walk you to class?"  
  
"Like you have any choice."  
  
When the bell sounded to end third period Carly picked up her books and ran out the door to her dorm, hoping she'd avoid seeing Banksie in the hall. She wasn't in the mood to explain to him what was going on. Still exhausted she flopped onto her bed and kept her head close to the phone incase she dozed off again. When it finally rang the voice on the other end belonged to a rather chipper sounding woman in her mid thirties.  
  
"Are you sure?" Carly asked having a hard time processing what she was being told and wondering how the women could be so perky while telling her it "Yes I understand, I'll follow up with my Minnesota doctor right away." The girl hung up and buried her face in her pillow crying until her eyes were dry, until her throat hurt from sobbing, until she fell asleep again.  
  
Caroline woke up hours later to a gentle tapping noise; at first she thought in was merely her pulse, which had been racing since she got the news. No it was definitely the door. Samantha Wyatt was her best friend, her editor and Portman's girlfriend. And she was making it no surprise she was on the opposite side looking incredibly worried.  
  
"You weren't in fourth, fifth or sixth period and you didn't show at the news paper meeting. Are you okay?" Sam's green eyes were clouded with concern.  
  
"No not really." She gestured for the other girl to enter the room and they both sat on her bed.  
  
"What's the matter?" Samantha was now nearly panicked.  
  
Carly leaned over and whispered the results of what the nurse had told her in her friend's ear and Sam gasped.  
  
"Oh my god. Have you told Adam?"  
  
"No it'll destroy him and it'll kill my parents."  
  
"Well you need to tell someone Carly, you need somebody to help you through this."  
  
"That's what you're for. Please Sam don't tell anyone, I don't want them to treat me differently."  
  
Samantha put her hand on top of her friends and squeezed it lightly, "I promise. How long?"  
  
"A little over a month." Caroline suddenly burst into tears again.  
  
"Oh Carly." Sam threw her arms around the sobbing girl and rocked her soothingly.  
  
In the mean time Connie had been sent by the team to bring Carly and Samantha down to dinner, but stopped and listened at the door when she heard the voices inside. Connie's jaw hit the floor at the conversation going on with in and she ran down the cafeteria to fill in the Ducks. 


	2. Bad times just get worse

Carly stood up on shaky legs and smoothed some of the wrinkles from her skirt with her hands. Her eyes were puffy from crying and she was hoarse from the retching wails that had been pouring out of her just moments before. Samantha wrapped her arm around her friend's shoulders and together they made their way to dinner.  
  
The Ducks table was crowded as usual and as it normally was when Carly didn't get down on time Averman was in her seat. She never figured out why the boy always felt the need to steal her stop, he did it constantly nonetheless. This time however instead of giving her a hard time like usual, Les pushed away from the table, gave her the chair and then pushed it in for her. The eyes of the team as well as Emily, Delilah and Cat were focused intently on her and Carly felt as if she'd grown an extra head. Charlie ran up and bought her a soda when she said she was thirsty, and Adam kept repeatedly squeezing her knee and Goldberg actually gave her his brownie.   
  
"Oh Carly, remember that quilt I got from back home with the eagle on it, you've always loved?" Delilah asked in her smooth Arkansas drawl "I was thinking would you like it? Winters coming and it's really warm, I can just have my parents send me a new one."  
  
"You refused to give that blanket up for 3 years Del, suddenly you wanna give it to me?" Carly raised her dark eyebrows.  
  
"Sure, I mean we're friends, friends share."  
  
"Oh and Carly, I'll stop listening to the radio at night because I know you need quiet to sleep." Emily declared  
  
"Em, you haven't gone to bed without listening to your Guster CD since you got it."  
  
"Yeah, but you need your sleep and all."  
  
"Alright guys, what is it?" Caroline lifted her head and looked from face to face.  
  
"What is what?" Came from a quite a few mouths.  
  
"Why are you all acting like Armageddon is on the way?"  
  
The entire table fell silent and Adam squeezed her knee again, "Caroline baby, is there something you have to tell me?"  
  
"Ummm…well…" All eyes went to Carly again and again she felt like she had he heebeegeebies "I, uh do, but can we talk tomorrow? I'm really tired I'm going to go to bed." Carly got up from her seat and ran back to her room. She couldn't bring herself to telling him; she hadn't even had time to think of what she'd say. All she knew was he wasn't ready to hear what she had to say.  
  
Banks heaved a heavy sigh as he watched his girlfriend retreat from the room. He put his head in his hands and clenched his eyes together tightly.  
  
"I'm going to talk to her." Samantha got up and chased Carly, leaving Portman staring after her.  
  
"I dunno what to do guys. There's obviously something wrong with her, why won't she talk to me?" Banksie was confused and worried.  
  
"Maybe she just doesn't know how to break it to you." Julie replied soothingly, "Mean it's a very serious thing to talk about."  
  
"I know I'd have a hard time telling Guy that I was dying in a month." Connie added sympathetically  
  
"I just don't understand how this could happen. She's to young we're to young. I wasn't supposed to lose her like this. We were suppose to go to California together for college, hell we were suppose to go to prom together." One lone tear rolled down Banks' cheek and dropped to his collar.  
  
Despite the fact Carly had never been more tired in her whole life she had managed only two hours sleep the night before. After Sam left, Emily had come back and she pretended to be asleep trying to avoid talking about what was wrong. Her brown eyes were surrounded with thick purple circles as she made her way to the cafeteria for breakfast the next morning. She filled her tray with all her favorite breakfast foods and settled into her seat near her boyfriend. No one gave her weird looks, nor did they say a word to her. It was evident that while she was in line Samantha had told them to knock it off. All was quiet that was until a familiar high pitched squeal came from behind her.  
  
"Caroline Epson, you come hug you sister." Screeched the tall curvy redhead swiftly walking toward them. Amanda Epson was Carly's older sister, her elder by almost two years. Amanda was also a complete bimbo who flunked both fifth and eighth grade, making her a senior too. Mandy had been sent to a boarding school in Switzerland for high school and it looked as though she'd been kicked out yet again. She'd always had been thrown out of one academy or another, this time Eden Hall was her unlucky new replacement. Carly groaned and banged her head on the table 'My life wasn't bad enough already right?' she thought starting to cry once more. 


	3. To young to be parents

~* I don't have a beta reader for this story so please bare with me if it's well bad. Reviews are like candy you can never have enough. Hit the button. Luv Ya Meme*~  
  
  
"Excuse me." A cute tall blonde put his hands on Amanda's hip and slipped behind her heading to the Duck's table. Mandy stood a few feet away watching her sister and her friends giggle and laugh a twinge of jealousy surging through her. It was bad enough that their parents shipped Amanda off to Switzerland and let Caroline stay in the states, but Carly seemed to be living the perfect life. She'd always been living the perfect live, Carly was everyone favorite, a fact that never escaped Mandy's mind. The entire flight to Minnesota she'd been coming up with a plan on how to ruin her sisters ideal existence and the close knit group of friends she apparently had was the best target.  
  
"If you're waiting for them to invite you over, don't hold your breath." A high pitched voice called from a table of cheerleaders nearby.  
  
"I beg your pardon?" Amanda turned around to face a petite girl with curly red hair and big blue eyes.  
  
"The Ducks and their little crew, they don't socialize with anyone but each other."   
  
"Hmmm, well I'm sure I can change that." The new girl eyed the blonde guy up and down from across the room, he was definitely hot and obviously polite. He was well dressed and his hand felt sooth against her bare hip as he passed.  
  
"If you're checking out Adam Banks, you have a better chance of getting struck by lightening then getting with him." The cheerleader tucked a stray strawberry ringlet behind her ear  
  
"Oh and why is that?" Who was this girl to say who Amanda could or could not land?  
  
"See the girl next to him? Carly Epson, that's his girlfriend, they're never more then two feet away from each other at any point in time."  
  
"You know this how?"  
  
"See the big one over there, the one in the leather jacket? That's Dean Portman, he's my ex. Sierra Morton, nice to meet you."  
  
"Amanda Epson."  
  
"Epson? Any relation to Carly?"  
  
"Caroline is my little sister. So tell me more about theses Ducks." The plan changed quickly for Carly's downfall, the friends were a good target but that Adam Banks seemed even better. She could destroy her younger sister and secure herself a gorgeous guy in the process if the idea that was swiftly forming worked.  
  
Breakfast ended and the teens cleared the cafeteria Adam wrapped his arm tightly around Carly's waist as they exited and she leaned her head on his shoulder.  
  
"Are you coming to my practice tonight?" Banks asked as he stood outside Carly's English class  
  
"Actually, is there anyway you can get out of practice? I really need to talk to you it's important." The girls eyes didn't meet his, a piece of reddish brown bags falling in her face. "I know you hate missing practice and all but, you know…"  
  
"Hey," Banksie put his hand under her chin and tipped it up " anything you want me to do I'll do it okay. I love you Caroline Mia Epson. Where do you want me to meet you?"  
  
"The butterfly garden." She answered quietly  
  
"I'm there." Adam kissed her cheek and watched as she went into the class room and took her seat.  
  
When classes let out Banksie crossed the campus to the parking lot.  
  
"Adam, Adam Banks right?" A tall girl with shoulder length red hair and well defined curves walked up behind him as he beeped his alarm off. He recognized her as the girl from the cafeteria, the one he had to squeeze behind to get to his seat at breakfast.  
  
"Yeah who are you?" Adam leaned against his metallic blue Mustang convertible  
  
"I'm new here, call me Mandy. Nice wheels."  
  
"Thanks. It was a birthday gift."  
  
"Wow what a present."  
  
"Umm yes it was. Well it was nice meeting for, but there's some where I have to be." He smiled politely and slipped into the car  
  
"Oh right, of course. A stud like you must have plans every night of the week." Mandy batted her eye lashes "Don't be a stranger." Her hair bounced as she walked away  
  
Banks couldn't help but think some pretty impure thoughts as he watched her saunter in the other direction. But he shook his head cleaning the image and started the engine.  
  
Carly was sitting alone on a marble bench in the park. The setting sun was dancing on the auburn highlights. Banksie's heart skipped a beat at the sight of her. He couldn't even being to think of what his life would've been like without her in it.  
  
"Caroline?" He cleared his throat behind her  
  
"You're late." Carly said quietly  
  
"I'm sorry, some new girl was talking to me in the parking lot."  
  
"Oh." She shifted over on the bench, so there was room for the both of them. "There's something very important I have to tell you. I just wish I knew how to say it."   
  
Adam intertwined his fingers with hers  
"It's alright, I already know."  
  
"You do, how?"  
  
"Connie heard you and Samantha talking last night. She told us all before you got to dinner."  
  
"You're handling it surprisingly well."  
  
"As good as you can expect me to given the circumstances. How long to you have left?"   
  
"A little less the eight months I think." She cuddled closer to his side and pulled his arm around her shoulder  
  
"Connie heard you say just over a month."  
  
"These things usually last nine months sweetie."  
  
"Caroline now I'm lost, what are we talking about?"  
  
Carly sighed and sat up looking him in the eyes  
"Remember last year when he did that project with the sack of flour? You said you couldn't wait until we had a baby, you don't have to wait much longer."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Adam, I'm pregnant."  
  
His eyes went wide and his head swam. Had he heard that right? She was pregnant, he was going to be a father.  
"You're pregnant, is it mine?"  
  
"What? I'm going to pretend you didn't just ask me that! There is no way it's anyone else's you big jerk." She pulled her boyfriends lettermen's jacket tighter around her suddenly cold.  
  
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that." He brushed her hair off her shoulder and kissed the delicate skin behind her ear "I love you, I know you haven't been with somebody else." He pulled her into his lap placing a hand on her stomach tenderly  
  
"You won't be able to do that for very much longer to know."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Pull me to you. I'm going to be getting fat and ugly soon."  
  
"You could never be ugly Carly, you're the most beautiful girl I've ever met."  
  
"I was worried you were going to freak out on me." Carly stated relieved  
  
"I'm not exactly calm about this trust me. You know, this is just as much my responsibility as it is yours though. Maybe more, I mean I'm the one that initiated everything that night."  
  
Something in his words made her cry again, though she couldn't really figure out why.  
"I dunno what we're gonna do. I'm to young to be a mother, you're not old enough to be a father."  
  
"Shhh, it's okay, it'll be alright, we'll work it out." He rubbed her belly soothingly "I'll be right here through it all."  
  
The young parents sat together there in the butterfly garden, holding each other for hours. It was way past sunset and only a half hour to curfew when they left. Adam walked his girlfriend to her dorm, up the moonlit walk way. At her door his fingers ran through his hair as if he was to nervous to do anything different.  
"I'll be in my room if you need anything. Just call me, I'll try to keep Luis off the phone."  
  
"I think I'm going to tell Emily." Carly looked at the floor  
  
"That's fine. Don't worry about anything, I've got it all under control." Banks' hands came up to her face holding it still while he brought his lips down to hers. "I love you with all my heart."  
  
"I know and I love you too. Good night."  
  
"Night mommy." Then Adam dropped to his knees in the middle of the corridor and kissed her stomach "G'night baby." Which caused Carly to break out in a fit of the giggles  
  
"You're going to be a great daddy."  
  
"I hope so." He hugged her once more, pressed his mouth to her forehead and set off down the hall.  
  
"Okay what was all the raucous about and where have you been all night?" Emily didn't even give Carly the chance to take her key out of the door before she started with the questions  
  
"I think you better take a seat Em." The dark haired girl gently deposited herself on her bed and paused as her roommate curled up in her desk chair.  
  
"So what is it?"  
  
"Emily, I'm having a baby. Adam and I we were at the park, I wanted us to be by ourselves when I told him."  
  
"Oh my god." Emily's pale hand flew to her mouth "Are you okay, is there something you need?"  
  
"No, I'm fine."  
  
"So you're not dying?"  
  
The made Carly giggle again  
"I'm not dying. Remind me to make that clear to everyone tomorrow. Now if you don't mind, I'm really sleepy, I just wanna go to bed."  
  
"Sure, sweet dreams." Emily reached over and turned off the light as both girls fell into a peaceful slumber. 


	4. Griffon

The next morning Luis was not only already up before Banks, but by the time he showered, shaved and dressed his roommate was still in bed. It wasn't until they only had ten minutes left until breakfast that he started to worry.  
  
"Banks, hey Banks, wake up man." He shook Adam's shoulder lightly. A moan escaped the confines of the faire-haired players throat still he refused to wake.  
  
"Banks if you don't get your lazy ass outa bed, I'm looking Carly alone in a room with Griffon." Luis threatened. That got him up in a hurry however. Griffon Montgomery was Adam's arch enemy. Well not really, but there'd been a feud running between the two of them for years. Caroline had just transferred in from some prep school on the Eastcoast and she knocked Banksie right off his skates. She was funny, smart, energetic, pretty and had the sweetest deposition. The whole team got their jollies from watching the way their star player acted around her. Unfortunately she had the same effect on Griffon. The Southern native did nothing short of offering her the Georgia plantation, he was set to inherit, to get her to notice him. He failed miserably of course, Carly wouldn't give any guy the time of day but her Adam. But Montgomery had also never not gotten something he wanted, making giving up on trying to win Caroline was out of the question.  
  
"Alright Mendoza, I'm up ya happy?" Banksie groaned throwing off the question  
  
"Good, so what's your problem?"  
  
"What makes you think I have a problem?"  
  
"The fact you weren't up before the sun. So what is it amigo?"  
  
"I'm having a baby."  
  
"You know I expected that from Connie or Julie even, not you Banksie. That's just not normal." Luis joked and Adam narrowed his eyes "You're serious aren't you?"  
  
"Partially, Caroline's having the baby, but it's mine."  
  
"Oh boy, Orion's gonna love that."  
  
"Tell me about it. I told Carly we'd get through it, the truth is I'm not sure we will. I don't know the first thing about being a father, if you learn by example my child's gonna hate me as much as I did my dad." Banksie was at his wits end, the night before he had to act calm and collected for his girlfriends sake, now he could let it all out. "My parents are going to flip, her father's going to kill me! And how am I going to be able to play hockey when I have to work and support a baby? If I don't play I'll lose my scholarship, and never get scouted by the NHL. I'll wind up working at a carwash for the rest of my life trying to make ends meet, while Carly sits on the couch at home watching soap operas, eating bonbons!"  
  
Luis stood quite during his teammates ranting but he found the last statement to funny to suppress the laughter any longer.  
"Did you breath at all during that Banksie?"  
  
"Yes, once." A miniscule smile formed on Adam's lips before he put his head in his hands and let out an exasperated groan.  
  
When the two made it down to the dining area everything was already seated. Charlie and Cat were in a debate on if he'd love her more if she looked like Shakira. He said no, she insisted it was a very interesting conversation. Dean was spouting some poetic dribble to Samantha, she was actually cooing, scary. Kenny, Russ, Averman and Goldberg were trying to think up a senior prank to end all senior pranks, while Delilah and Emily were discussing which movie Josh Hartnett looked hotter in. Adam dumped into his seat near his girlfriend as she stirred her yogurt for the seven thousandth time.  
  
"I didn't think you were coming." She whispered as his left arm found it's usual spot around her shoulders.  
  
"And make you face the mob alone?" Even with his doubts Adam Banks was a man of principle, he would stick by her through think and thin because that was the type of guy he was.  
  
"Do you wanna tell them or should I?"  
  
"I will most of them were my friends first." Banks cleared his throat loudly a gesture most of the team ignored. "Uh, guys?" Some heads turned to him but not all  
"Connie, Guy could you two come out of the lip lock for a minute? Thanks. Alright, now, um, I don't know how to say this so I'll just say it. Caroline and I are going to have a baby."  
  
There were a few gasps, a 'What?' and Dwayne choked on his orange juice.  
  
"Is that healthy in your condition?" Connie lifted her head off Guy's shoulder  
  
"My condition?" Carly looked puzzled  
  
"Well like dying and all."  
  
"Cons, I'm not dying I'm just with child." She forced a smile  
  
"That's so awesome, I love babies." Julie started bouncing in her seat  
  
"Did you think of any names?" Delilah asked  
  
"I can baby-sit." Cat added "Well before I go home."  
  
"Wait, wait, wait. What is this gonna do for your hockey playing?" Leave it to Captain Conway to bring up hockey.   
  
"Um, well I haven't figured that out yet. I guess I'll play the rest of the season and then, I'll get a job or something." Banks answered staring at his hands  
  
Luckily that instant was the same time Griffon decided to come over to the table for his daily dose of Carly.  
  
"Mornin' Carly, how are ya today?" He had this subtle southern accent that rivaled Dwayne's.  
  
"Good morning Griffon." She gave him the same flat response she'd been giving forever  
"I just came over to ask if you'd like to sit with me at the game after school tonight?"  
  
"I'm sitting behind the bench like I always do Griffon." Carly sighed  
  
"Well then I can sit with you."  
  
"Listen Griffon, you are a minger, Carly doesn't want you, she has Adam. So why don't you just crawl back under the rock you came out from under." Cat snapped in all her British glory.  
  
"We'll give you about five seconds to get you spoiled, stuck up ass away from this table before we kick it." Fulton glared as Portman nodded  
  
'Well at least that changed the subject.' Caroline thought as Griffon walked away. Why wasn't it all the angst had to revolve around her? 


	5. Will you marry me

Carly sat in her usual seat between Samantha and Delilah, Cat and Emily chatting nonsense on the other side of Del. The girls never missed a game as the loving girlfriends they were. They always sat one row up from the bench, despite the fact the only one that actually watched the game was Delilah and she didn't even have a boyfriend on the team. All five stood and clapped as the boys took the ice and Carly and Cat watched closely to see whose man would be taking the face off that day. It was Charlie, Adam went in at right wing, and Luis and Portman took their places as well. How odd it was the entire first line, were dating four of the five friends.  
  
At the end of the third period against the Richfield Spartans, Eden Hall was a head 2 to 1 and was looking to pad and hold the lead. Averman swiped the puck from one of the rival team players and sent it sailing over to Banks who was waiting. Adam set off toward the Spartans goal, in all his star player glory. He was just about to shoot when John Roberts, an enforcer for the Spartans checked him, viciously from behind. Banksie went down hard, his helmet flying off and landing next to him on the ice.   
  
"Oh no it looks like Eden Hall number 99 Adam Banks, has been knocked out from a hard check by Richfield number 23 John Roberts." The announcer stated.  
  
Carly shot up to her feet spewing a long list of words that can't be repeated. Words that people didn't even know that she knew. She even managed a few French, Spanish and British swear words she stole from Emily, Luis and Cat.  
  
"Carly calm down, you don't need to get so worked up. It's not healthy in your condition." Samantha tried to pull her back into her seat.  
  
"Having the father of my baby knocked unconscious isn't good either." She snapped before continuing her rant.  
  
"Caroline Epson, knock that shit off you're distracting my team." Orion yelled up at her, she'd never had such an outburst at any other game.  
  
"Distracting your team? Coach Orion, Adam's still on the ice! I don't really care if your team's distracted." She stomped her foot hard.  
  
Ted Orion shook his head and walked out onto the ice to check on his injured player. When he got out to him the paramedics were packing up their gear and Adam had opened his eyes, they were slightly cloudy from the blow to the head, but he'd be otherwise fine. The coach and Fulton helped Banks onto the bench and Carly watched in horror as he fell on to it, not strong on his legs. Orion looked up and noticed her worried expression and sighed.   
  
"I know I'm going to regret this." He walked over to the door and opened it, waving Carly down to join her boyfriend.  
  
The girl smiled faintly as she made her way down and over to Adam. Her heart was still racing though; she didn't think she'd ever been that scared before in her life. And she'd witnessed him being checked many times over the course of their relationship; somehow being pregnant made seeing it worse though.  
  
"If you ever do that to me again, I'll kill you." She warned standing in front of her baby's father.  
  
"I'm sorry, I'm make sure all the guys on the other team know that my pregnant girlfriend doesn't take kindly to me being knocked out." Her reached out and grabbed her waist pulling her forward so he could rest his forehead against her stomach.  
  
"You do that. I'm serious, that John Roberts is in for it, I tell you. He better not let me catch him in a dark alley."  
  
Adam only laughed and brought her down onto the bench beside him, tipping her chin up delicately for a kiss.  
  
"Oh no you don't, don't think that giving me that sexy smile and a kiss is gonna…" Then he silenced her with another kiss.  
  
The game ended with the Ducks winning 4-2. And the girls were waiting patiently; well make that impatiently outside of the locker room to get the chance to congratulate the victors. Luis was the first one out and he was rewarded for this by having his beautiful blonde girlfriend jump into his arms like she hadn't seen him in a month.   
  
"Great game, baby."  
  
"Will I get this every time we win?" He asked in his intoxicating accent.  
  
"Maybe." Em teased taking his hand and tugging him over to the side so the rest on the team could get out the door.  
  
Cat and Charlie had almost the same interaction, while Dean just picked Samantha up and spun her around, then kissed her cheek.  
  
"Okay are we ready to go? I'm starving, mom and dad promised this year they'll give us free sandwiches and soda after every game." Goldberg told then all while taking a bite of his Butterfinger.  
  
"Hold on we gotta wait for Banks." Julie informed him.   
  
"I'm right here." Adam's hand slipped around Carly's and the group began to straggle off into the parking lot.  
  
"How's your head?" Caroline glanced up at him concerned.  
  
"A little sore, how's your stomach?" He stopped at her caramel brown Pt Cruiser and hung on while she unlocked the trunk so he could stuff his gear inside.  
  
"A little occupied." She patted her belly for emphasis and got into the car.  
  
"Caroline, do you think we should get married?" After a few minutes of a wordless ride Banks turned to her posed quite possibly the most shocking question Carly had ever been asked. She was so surprised in fact that she actually swerved on the road like there was an animal in the way.  
  
"Umm… well… not if you don't think we should."  
  
"I think we should. I'm sorry I didn't get you a real ring yet but…" Banksie tugged at the class ring on his finger that was somewhat swollen from the game. "This'll have to do until I can get to the jewelry store." The ring slid off his hand finally and he leaned over her to grasp her left hand, careful not to make her crash.  
  
"Caroline Mia Epson, will you marry me?"  
  
Carly could feel the tears starting to sting her eyes and she couldn't manage a word, all she could do was nod. As soon as thye were in the parking lot of the Goldberg Deli however she hurled herself into his arms kissing his face franticly.  
  
"I…" kiss "love…" kiss "you…" kiss "so…" kiss "much."  
  
"I love you too." Adam linked his fingers with hers; he didn't think he'd ever been happier or more nervous in his life. 


	6. Caught in the act

"I get to tell them." Carly grinned as Adam held the door open for her  
  
"Whatever you want sweetie." Banks put his hand on the small of her back as she passed and followed her to the table in the rear of the diner  
  
"There are the proud parents." Guy joked from his spot on the top of the booth. Any other group of teens would've been thrown out of sitting on the back of the booth with their feet on the seat but not the Ducks.  
  
"What took you guys so long?" Dwayne asked in his southern drawl  
  
"Like we don't know." Averman elbowed Banksie in the rib as he stood at the end of the table  
  
"Shut up Averman." Carly groaned  
  
"That's right it's a little late for that isn't it." Les teased  
  
"No Averman really shut up." Adam commanded "And push over so Caroline can sit down."  
  
Carly flashed him her thousand-watt smile and lowered herself gently into the seat near the obnoxious redhead. Averman slunk over a bit insulted no one laughed at his incredibly lame joke, pushing over to far in the process and knocking Julie off the other end of the bench. She hit the floor with a thump and Carly, Del and Samantha all stifled a laugh. None of them were actually very fond of the 'Cat' but she was a Duck therefore they were nice to her. Carly mostly hated her because she thought the female goalie wanted her man.  
  
Adam pulled out a chair from a nearby table and slid it to Jules who gave him a grateful look, which earned her the death glare from his fiancé. Banks only gave his future wife an innocent look, her response to which was a mere roll of her eyes. A bad habit she'd picked up from years of friendship with Delilah (the person Del is baste on does that very frequently to annoy me, if she reads this I hope she knows that I'm talking about her). So he simply shrugged his shoulders at her and grabbed another chair putting it at the end of the table next to her.  
  
"Um guys," Carly began, trying to gain the attention of the group "I have an announcement.  
  
"The last announcement you made to us was you're having a baby. What next you're getting married." Goldberg pondered aloud, walking tow the table with a tray loaded with food. When neither she nor Adam disagreed the whole team fell silent.  
  
"You are, aren't you?" Samantha's eyes widened.  
  
"Yes!" Caroline shrieked, her face lighting up like a Christmas tree  
  
"Orion's really going to have a cow now." Ever notice how much of a downer Charlie is?  
  
Luckily they were interrupted before he could start his lecture, well maybe it was unluckily.  
  
"Adam Banks, funny seeing you here." An overly excited female voice exclaimed from behind them. The entire group turned their heads to see Amanda along with her new friends, Sierra Morton, Kim Fowler, Taylor Rhodes, Jade Sanyo and Noelle Benson. Kim, Taylor and Noelle were all on the cheerleading squad with Sierra and Jade played soccer with Emily and Cat. The faction was formed because all the girls harbored a deep underlying hatred for one of the Ducks or their girlfriend for some reason or another. For Sierra it was Portman's leaving her for Samantha, Kim had made a move on Russ and he turned her down flat, Connie and Taylor had actually gotten into a fist fight over whose boyfriend was better looking (Connie of course won on both counts), Noelle was tied for second in the class with Kenny and Jade desperately wanted to be the best player on the soccer team, Em and Cat however were in the way, with them around she stood no chance.  
  
"Oh hey Mandy, what's up? Do you know the Ducks?" Banks pointed to each member of the crew and gave her their names  
  
"You don't have to introduce us." She stopped him when he got the Carly  
  
"You know Carly?" He raised his eyebrows at her  
  
"She's my sister." Carly mumbled looking at her hands and fiddling with Adam's ring which was much to big for her tapered fingers  
  
"You're sister?"  
  
"Yeah Hun, my sister."  
  
"I thought your sister was in Switzerland."  
  
"I was." Amanda butted in "Now I'm not."  
  
Caroline's skin started to crawl at the lusty look her older sibling was giving her future husband "Mandy why don't you go back there?" She snapped  
  
"Why dear Caroline if I didn't know better I would think you didn't want me around." Her sister voice was dripping with mock hurt  
  
"Maybe that's because I don't and personally if you're planning on staying I'm going." Carly pushed herself up from the table and grabbed her keys "You can stay with the team Hun." She whispered in Banks' ear as she leaned over to kiss him goodbye  
  
"No I'm coming baby hold on. See you later guys."  
  
Banksie followed her out and reached for her shoulder to stop her as they crossed the parking lot.  
"What's wrong?"  
  
"Nothing." Carly pulled her car keys from the pocket of Adam's varsity jacket  
  
"Have I ever told you how cute you look in that jacket?" He pulled her to him, he knew better then to push her, and if she didn't want to talk about something she wouldn't  
  
"No you haven't, please do." Carly reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck  
  
"You are the most beautiful women on the planet Mrs. Banks."  
  
"Well you're not so bad yourself Mr. Banks." She opened her mouth in anticipation for the pending kiss. They were so lost in the kisses, losing all track or time and place, not pulling away until the horn of a car trying to leave the lot blared at them.  
  
"I think we should probably get out of the middle of the parking lot." Banksie stared into her deep brown eyes with his sparkling blue ones  
  
"Okay. Here you wanna drive?" The girl threw him the keys and climbed into the   
car.  
  
Some time on the drive he worked up the nerve to ask her again what was wrong  
  
"I told you nothing was the matter." She sighed  
  
"And you're lying to me." Banksie took her left hand in his right and drove with his left  
  
"Fine, it's Amanda. She's sneaky and manipulative and I didn't like the way she was looking at you in there."  
  
"So you're jealous?"  
  
"No it's not that, I just don't trust her. She's stolen guys right from under my nose before."  
  
"You don't trust her, do you trust me?"  
  
"Of course I do."  
  
"Then don't worry about it. I'm not going anywhere, there's only one Epson for me and that's you." He brought the back of her hand up to his mouth and she sighed again  
  
"What did I ever do to get you to pick me?" His girlfriend asked glowing  
  
"You're just lucky I guess."  
  
"Stop it!! Adam knock it off, you're going to make me pee myself. Stop!" It was two hours later and Carly was in a fit of hysterical giggles as Adam pinned her to his bed with tickle torture  
  
"What'll you give me if I do?" He continued the assault reveling in the sound of her laughter  
  
"My hand in marriage." She squealed as his hands traveled down her sides   
  
"Nah, something else." Banks teased smirking like an idiot  
  
"Jerk." Carly playful shoved him off and rolled over so she wasn't facing him  
  
"But you love me anyway." He kissed the back of her neck and encircled her waist with his arms, then moved his lips to the crevasse between her neck and shoulder.  
  
"Mmm, when do you think Luis'll be back?" Caroline rolled back over so she was facing him  
  
"I dunno, I think him and Charlie were taking Em and Cat to a movie. Why?"  
  
"I just love being here with you like this. I can't wait to spend the rest of ours lives together."  
  
"Me too. I think tomorrow after school we should go tell my parents." He murmured in her thick brown hair  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
"Of course, I love you and we're getting married, my mom and dad have to know."  
  
"If you're certain."  
  
"I am." He dropped a kiss on her nose "Now, being pregnant, doesn't mean you can't… Does it?"  
  
"Nope, I think we're all set there." Carly reached over and turned the light off and giggled again when she felt her fiancé's weight rested on top of her.  
  
When the door opened later that night Carly was asleep in Adam's arms, his face nestled in her hair. They stayed blissfully dead to the world until the light and Luis's stereo both came on. Banks and Caroline's eyes flew open to see Luis and Emily standing at the end of the bed laughing uncontrollably.  
  
"Jesus!" Carly gasped pulling the blanket up to her chin  
  
"We were trying to think of the best way to wake you guys." Emily couldn't stifle her hysterics  
  
"Now Banksie isn't that what got you into this mess to begin with." Luis kidded  
  
Carly was still as red as a beat when she got dressed and went back to her dorm with Em, who just shook her head at her roommate the entire walk. Caroline hardly noticed though, she was to wrapped up in her thoughts of the next day.  
  
~* Next Chapter will be where the angst starts, I just wanted to have some fluff first.*~ 


	7. Breaking up is hard to do

Other then the slight morning sickness and desire to eat a cow, when Carly woke up the next day she felt like she could take on the world.  
  
"Would you stop looking at me like that? I'm pregnant for God's sake, it's not like you didn't know we've been sleeping together." She deadpanned to Emily who still kept giving her cheeky grins about the night before  
  
"Oh I knew you guys were doing it Car, I just didn't want to see it." Emily stated pulling a black bucket hat over her silky blonde hair   
  
"You didn't see us doing anything. Isn't that Cat's hat by the way?"  
  
"I know you were done already, thank God. And no we both have one, they're our Josh Hartnett hats."  
  
"Uh huh. You know you guys have been in Minnesota for almost four years and you still haven't found him."  
  
"Yeah sadly. You know I don't understand why you're so worried about what you're gonna wear, it's gonna be one of your eight million blue tops and if it's not it's just gonna be covered by Adam's letterman's jacket anyway."  
  
"Fashion advice from the girl in yoga pants, a Notre Dame sweat shirt and bucket hat."  
  
"Hey I gotta meet Cat at the field to get in shape for soccer season, this is the most comfortable outfit I have. Speaking of which if you see Luis before I do, tell him I promise to meet him for lunch. I missed our last one because Evan decided to play the loser ex boyfriend and stole my car keys, it took an hour to get them back. Let me tell you everything they say about Spanish tempers is true, you shoulda seen Luis when he found out. So make sure he knows I will not ditch him today. No wait I have a better idea, you're going out for the whole day right?" Emily asked perking up  
  
"Yeah I should be, why?" Caroline eyed her cautiously   
  
"Tell him to come by the room at like one. I'll swing by the Cornel and pick up a six piece meal, we can snuggle and watch an Al Pacino marathon."  
  
"The Godfather, very romantic." Carly remarked jokingly  
  
"Hey it's our movie. So will you do it?"  
  
"Will do, now get going. And watch out for Jade, you remember what happened last year." The year before Jade had been so desperate to win the MVP of the state soccer championship that she had actually tripped Emily during the game, causing her to wrench her knee about sixty degrees in the wrong direction, tearing a ligament and be taken out of the game. Jade's plan back fired though because Cat got to be the MVP instead. It took all of junior year and the summer for Em to heal enough to play again and she still wasn't one hundred percent.  
  
"K, see ya. Oh yeah and Banksie has a pretty nice chest." She teased causing her roommate to hurl a coat hanger at her, which bounced off the door as it closed.  
  
"That is why Luis crashes into things, he hopes he'll eventually knock himself out so he won't have to deal with her ." Carly said to herself with a giggle as she continued to get ready for her day out. She prayed the Banksess would be more excited and supportive then she knew her parents would be, but with those people you could never really tell what they'll think.  
  
Adam stood in the courtyard rocking impatiently on his heels, Carly was late for everything, that's one of the things he loved about her. She never meant to be, she'd even start getting ready an extra hour early just to be on time, it just never worked. He knew she'd try on a million different outfits, do her hair six thousand separate ways and then decide on the first one she tried. That was the type of thing she always did. Normally it was endearing and he found it cute, however that day he was restless.  
  
Then like the vision from a magazine he spotted her crossing the campus lawn. As Emily had avowed earlier Caroline was in fact wearing blue. A pair of khaki overalls with her favorite midnight blue turtleneck, she'd pulled her longish brown hair back in a butterfly clip and left a wisp of red fall around her face.  
  
"U look beautiful, but why all the effort to see my parents? It's not like you've never met them before." His arm slipped around her waist and he dropped a kiss on her cheek  
  
"Well I can't very well go tell you mom I'm having her baby's baby while looking like I just got run over by a train can I?" Carly was one of those girls that wanted people to like her no matter what and her fiancé's parents were the most important people she could think of.   
  
"We should get you mom some flowers at one of the little corners stores." They'd been on the road for twenty and she hadn't stopped bouncing since she got in the BMW  
  
"Caroline, I love you but if you don't sit still, I'm going to pull the car over and leave you on the side of the road." Banks laughed but was only part way joking  
  
"I'll call Sam to come get me, she's from Minnesota she'll know the way." She stuck her tongue out at the side of her boyfriends head, which he caught with his peripheral vision  
  
"That's good you're a bad influence already and the baby's not even born yet."  
  
"I am not a bad influence!" She gave him a shocked look  
  
"You're a bad influence on me, but that's why I love you." Adam took one hand off the wheel brushed it across her cheek  
  
"You better. Okay baby names, come on. I like Natasha."  
  
Banks sighed and shook his head  
"Natasha Banks?"  
  
"Nope, Natasha Penelope Banks Epson."  
  
"Please tell me you're kidding."   
  
"Of course Natasha Penelope Epson Banks."   
  
"Honey…"  
  
"How about Mackenzie?"  
  
  
"Mackenzie, okay I like that. If it's a boy how about Mickey?"  
  
"Mickey? Like Mickey mouse?"  
  
"No Mickey as in Mickey's diner, the place we had our first date."  
  
"Awwww that's so sweet. Alright Mickey it is then." Carly leaned over in her seat to kiss his cheek, then decided to attack his neck as well  
  
"You're making it very hard to drive."  
  
"Am I? Sorry."  
  
"You'll be sorry if I wrap this car around a telephone pole."  
  
"You sound like a dad already." She goofed ruffling his hair then settling back into her seat  
  
The Banks estate never ceased to amaze Carly no matter how many times she'd been there. While her parents were the Townhouse on the beach type people, Adam's family owned a huge home, with wide spread acres, gardens and a stable.  
  
"We'll have to teach the baby to ride." Banksie declared taking her hand as the stable hand ride by on the back of Philip's Arab.  
  
"Okay." Carly replied allowing herself to be pulled up the walkway to the house.  
  
"Mom, Dad, we're here!" Adam's voiced echoed through the foyer, yelling was a big no no in Banks house hold and he knew he was going to hear it for that. Of course it was okay when it was Phil screaming to tell him how much of a disappointment he was.  
  
"Adam Jonathon, how many times do I have to tell you not be so loud?" Barbara Banks was a tall slender women, with wheat colored hair and aqua eyes. To look at her one would be more likely to think of her as Adam's older sister then his mother, but while her face smiled with youthful enthusiasm her tone was bitter and dry. It was not wonder Adam was so quiet and timid at times, his parental units were both bullies.  
  
"Well Darcy set dinner out in the informal dining room tonight, why don't we go sit down and you two can tell us the good news, you mentioned when you called." Philip directed  
  
Carly had Adam's hand in such a death grip she nearly cut off circulation. If he wasn't a hard nosed hockey player he probably would have shrieked in pain. She clung close to his side as the walked down the long hallway toward the dinning room. She looked like a petrified kindergartener.  
  
It was somewhere after the minestrone soup beginning or the meal and before the peach cobbler end that Adam cleared his throat. With wobbly legs he stood up from the seat, making eye contact with Caroline across the table. She gulp and held her breath as Banksie began his announcement.  
  
"Mom, Dad, Carly and I are going to have a baby and we're getting married."  
  
Philip choked oh a bite of chicken primavera and red whine shot out of Barbara's nose like a bullet from a gun.  
  
"You're doing what?" His mother gasped wiping the purplish liquid as it ran down her face  
  
"We're umm engaged, we're gonna have a baby and get married." Carly's voice was below a hush, far less assured then the way Adam had ever heard it  
  
"Adam, may I speak to you in the den please, right now." It came out more as a demand rather then a request and Banks followed his father without objection  
  
"What in god's name do you think you're doing!" The vein in Phil's neck was throbbing and his eye's looked ready to burst  
  
"Getting married and in about 7 ½ months being a father." Adam didn't sound to certain with himself either  
  
"I need to sit down." Mr. Banks put his hands on his face and fell in an inelegant heap onto the sofa behind him "Married, married? How could you let this happen? She's just using you, you know that don't you?"  
  
"Using me for what? Money? The Epson's are the fifth most wealthy family in Massachusetts."   
  
"Damn it Adam I thought you were smarter then this."  
  
"Smarter then what dad? I met a girl, I fell in love and now I'm getting married and starting a family. That's what you and Mom wanted me to do isn't it?"  
  
"Not at eighteen years old! What's Caroline seventeen?"  
  
"She'll be eighteen in January, besides age has nothing to do with it. We're financially stable and in love, what else is there."  
  
"You're financially stable? Need I remind you who pays for your car insurance and credit card bills, who's paying for you're dorm and all you're bills at Stanford. Jesus I still give you your pocket cash. You're not mature enough to raise a child. And even if you were, I'm not going to support you, if you're a married man then you better go out and get a job. Try to fit that in between school and hockey and trying to be a loving father and husband and still make enough money to support all three of you. Or maybe you can just give up hockey and get a full time job, give up Stanford, your shot at the NHL and basically your entire future! That's what you'll be doing you know, throwing it all away for some girl, a marriage that won't last six months and be god damned if you're gonna come crawling back to this house."  
  
Banks was sitting on the rocking chair on the opposite side of the room facing him father, his expression set in stone. He'd been thinking the same things since he found out, wondering what his life would be like, somehow it didn't seem like it was likely to happen until the words came from someone else's mouth.  
"I think Carly and I should be leaving."  
  
The ride back to campus went in total silence, Adam stewing in his own thoughts and Carly to afraid to ask what Philip had said. She stared out the passenger window as he focused on the horizon. The tension in the car was so thick that you would have to cut it with a chainsaw instead of a knife. Banks knew what he had to do, yet cursed himself for it.  
  
They walked from the parking lot to the quad between the dorms smothered and gagged still by the silence until he stopped abruptly  
  
"Caroline, you know I love you right?"  
  
"Of course I do, I love you too sweetheart." She tried to study his face in the twilight but the expression was unreadable  
  
"Then you know how hard it is for me to do this. Carly I don't think we should get married."  
  
"What?" She couldn't have heard him right  
  
"I don't like we should get married Carly, it's too soon, we're too young."  
  
"This is because of what you father said isn't it? You let him talk you into this, didn't you? You let him convince you not to love me anymore! Didn't you? Didn't you?" Words can not describe the emotions that were tumbling around inside of the girl at that moment "Or maybe you never loved be that much to begin with, I bet you never wanted to marry me either."  
  
Adam felt like he'd been kicked in the stomach, a lot of people had said a lot of hurtful things to him through the route of his life but nothing had ever stung the way that had.   
"How can you even say that to me?"  
  
"It was pretty easy, I opened my mouth and the words came out. And you know what? I meant them." She snapped crossing her arms  
  
"Well if that's the way you feel maybe we shouldn't be together at all." Banksie regretted the words as soon as he said them but before he could take them back, even rethink them his class ring was hurled at his head and Carly took off in a storm of tears. 


	8. The hardest part of breaking up is getti...

Carly ran back to her bed room that night a walking bag of tears, it was a miracle she found her room at all. When she opened the door she just about turned around and found somewhere else to cry, all she wanted was to be alone but that would be prevented by the fact, Emily, Luis, Cat and Charlie were all sitting on her floor watching an Anaheim Mighty Ducks game. Odds were that, that had been Charlie's idea.  
  
"Hey Car, how was your day?" Emily lifted her head from Luis's shoulder and the door squeaked open and caught a glimpse of Carly before she could run  
  
"It was uh…" Caroline tried to keep her voice level but as she stepped into the room the light fell on her face and illuminated her swollen puffy eyes.  
  
"Carly what happened?" Cat looked up at her concerned  
  
"Adam and I… we umm… he broke up with me." That was the end of the emotional control. She lost it again, tears flooding her face like a waterfall   
  
"He did what?" Charlie's face was an unhealthy mix of shock and anger  
  
"Please don't make me say it again." Carly whined throwing herself onto her bed and pulling her navy blue comforter over her head  
  
"Why don't you guys go back to your dorm?" Emily whispered to Luis, pulling him to his feet  
  
"Yeah, I think I need to have a little talk to my roommate." The Latin lover declared waving the captain to follow him out.  
  
"Carly do you want me to go get Samantha and Delilah?" Cat lowered herself onto the edge of her friends bed and peeled the covers back from her face  
  
"No. I just wanna be alone." The broken hearted mother to be sniffled yanking the blanket back up over her, pulling her stuffed Winnie the Pooh close to her chest  
  
"You can go Cat, I'll watch her." Em forced a smile and followed her best friend to the door  
  
When Catherine was safely at her end of the hall Emily came in and closed their door, debating on asking what really had happened. She didn't get the chance though because before she could, Carly spilled her guts.  
  
"He said he didn't want to get married and I accused him of not loving me and he said if that's the way I felt about it then we shouldn't be together."   
  
"Oh my god. Are you sure he was serious?" Emily just couldn't come to grips with that. Carly and Adam had been together for years, she couldn't even begin to imagine one without the other  
  
"I threw his ring at him and took off crying and if you haven't noticed he's not here clarifying things."  
  
"I'm so sorry Car."  
  
"I know Em, it's not your fault. But I'm gonna try to get some sleep, maybe things will look brighter in the morning."  
  
"Kay, goo- uh night." Emily clicked the light on her roommates end table off then crawled into her own bed. The sound of her friends quiet weeping leading her to know it was going to be a long night.  
  
  
"Hey Cake-Eater, where's your little women?" Russ joked from his end of the table at breakfast the next morning. The only people that knew about the recent break up were those that had been in the girls room the night prior. And those four who had all held their breath  
  
"I dunno." Adam answered simply, glaring at his waffle   
  
"What do you mean, you don't know? You two are like attached at the hip." Goldberg look at him skeptically  
  
"I don't know where she is. Alright, just fucking drop it." Banks snapped and swore, a thing most of the team still wasn't use to  
  
"Come on Banks it's pretty hard for us to believe you don't know where Carly is." Added Averman  
  
"I'm right here." The girl said brightly breezing into the room, freshly showered and made over. She made the conscious decision the night before that she wasn't going to let Adam know she was hurting. She wasn't the type to give him the satisfaction of knowing she felt like she was dying inside. Caroline made a big production of walking all the way around the table to sit near Samantha, without so much as looking at Banksie. That earned quizzical stares from everyone else.  
  
"Why didn't you site next to Adam?" Sam whispered in her best friends ear  
  
"Oh yeah, I might as well tell everyone." Carly said loud enough to gain attention from all, not just in their group but in the entire cafeteria "Adam and I broke up. I'm pregnant with his baby, but that appears not to have matter to him. Therefore I am now a single seventeen year old mother to be."  
  
Jaws dropped, the whites of eyes were exposed and faint uncomfortable coughing could be heard throughout the room. But none were more shocked then their friends. That was just to tuff for them the process.  
  
"Now if you'll excuse me I have to go throw up." With that Carly ran out of the lunch room with her hand over her mouth.  
  
Hockey practice that day was probably the hardest that Adam had ever been through, the first since sophomore year that Carly didn't go to. It was sad how many times he caught himself looking up at the bleachers for her. Each time his eyes registered only Emily, Cat and Delilah. Sam never made it to practices, she was always running newspaper meetings, something Portman had grown used to. Banks wondered how their enforcer could deal with his girlfriend missing all of the scrimmages when his own ex-girlfriend missed one and it felt like his heart was being ripped out. His head, his heart and his gut were all pulling him in different ways, his heart saying how much he loved Carly and how stupid he was being, his head saying he'd done the right thing and his gut telling him there had to be a happy medium. Which he of course knew there wasn't, with both he and Caroline it was all or nothing. At that moment it was nothing.  
  
Carly was sitting on her bed with a notebook open in front of her working on an article about the Senior class trip to a sky resort in the mountains, trying to avoid thinking of the plans she and Adam had made to spend every minute of that tip together, when there a knock at the door. She threw her pencil down hard to the bed with a sigh thinking Emily had forgotten her key again.  
  
"One of these days you're gonna lock yourself out and I'm not gonna be here to let you in." She scolded as she crossed the room, however when she opened the door the person on the other side while blonde and blue eyed wasn't Em.  
  
"Adam, what are you doing here?"  
  
"We need to talk." He shifted anxiously from foot to foot "Can I come in?"  
  
"Sure." Carly stepped back allowing him to enter room  
  
"I didn't get the chance to say this, this morning cuz you ran off puking and you never came to my scrimmage, so now's as good of a time as any."  
  
"Yeah, what?" She tried to suppress her smile, that was it, he's going to apologize to her  
  
"Could I have my lettermen jacket back?"  
  
A chill ran the length of the girls spine as tears sprung to her eyes once more  
"What?"  
  
"My Varsity jacket, can I have it back please?"  
  
Carly nodded and walked over to the jacket that was hanging over the back of her desk chair and picked it up. She lifted it to her nose, taking the scent in one last time, then promptly threw it out of her bedroom window.  
  
"There now you don't even have to carry it. Anything else you'd like back?" Her brown eyes gleamed with evilness, waiting for him to think of some long forgotten object that he suddenly couldn't live without.  
  
"I can't believe you just hurled my jacket out the window!" Banks didn't know if he was shocked or livid  
  
"Well I can't believe you broke my heart, I guess we'll have to deal with it. Now get out, if I find anything else of yours I'll send it over."  
  
"You threw my jacket out the window." He said again  
  
"Yeah, consider yourself lucky I didn't burn it. You're leaving now." She pushed him out the door, slammed it in his face and proceeded to sink the floor in tears again 


	9. Damn you Carly Epson

Adam walked down the Eden Hall corridor a whirl wind of emotion, guilt, anger, loneliness. The only love he'd ever know was that of Carly Epson, the only lips he'd ever kissed and starry eyes he'd stared intensely into. There was an emptiness inside him, burning deep into his heart, still he said nothing to her.  
  
"Banksie, are you gonna be ready for the game tonight?" Charlie asked as he came up along side his friend and threw an arm around the other boy's shoulder.  
  
"Yeah, of course, I'm always ready when it comes to hockey. Why wouldn't I be now?" Adam shook the thoughts from his head and reentered the world of Eden Hall.  
  
"You just look a little out of it and as the captain, I've gotta check these things out."  
  
"Nah, I'll be okay, I just need to stop thinking about Carly, hopefully I can avoid seeing her until after the game."  
  
"Then do me a favor and don't look down the hall." Charlie gestured with his chin to where Banks' ex was standing with Samantha and Delilah.  
  
Adam felt a ball form in the pit of his stomach at the sight of her. Caroline was tossing her long reddish brown hair and her dark eyes were sparkling. She seemed to be having the time of her life, looking radiant. And all she was doing was standing against the outside of the newspaper office, talking to girls that had been her closest friends for years.   
  
Banks' adjusted the strap of his backpack and sighed.  
"Maybe I should go talk to her."  
  
"Go for it buddy." Conway patted his friend on the back "I'll think I'll head over to the soccer field and find Cat."  
  
"So Carly, how are you doin'?" Del asked pushing one of her light curls out of her eyes.  
  
"Ugh, why does everyone keep asking me that? I've been dumped, not hit by a car or something." Carly smiled, then caught her ex out of the corner of her eye and added "Adam's over it, why shouldn't I be?"  
  
Unfortunately for Banks the dean's office was right across from the newspaper office and just as he opened his mouth to say something to Caroline, dean Buckley's voice interrupted him.  
  
"Mr. Banks, join me in my office please."  
  
Banksie followed the headmaster past the secretary's desk and through the waiting area, straight into the dean's personal office. The boy was so nervous he was practically peeing himself. He hadn't been called in there since the first day of freshmen year when the whole team received a reaming over the assembly incident.  
  
"Yes sir, what was it that you wanted to see me for?" He asked, waiting was causing his stomach to do summersaults.  
  
"Well, I was hoping you could explain how this," The dean held up Banks' lettermen's jacket "came to be stuck in a tree near the girls dormitories. It caused Mr. Lincoln (one of the school's custodians) to have to get a latter to retrieve it."  
  
Adam sighed and shook his head, Carly was getting him into trouble again  
"My girl- I mean my ex girlfriend, she threw it out her window."  
  
"Ahhh, Miss Epson." Dean Buckley nodded.  
  
"Yes sir, um, how did you know that?" The young hockey player was curious  
  
"Everyone knows that Adam Banks and Caroline Epson are 'the' couple, even the faculty. You two make quite the pair, I must say. But you look good together." The dean had this sort of dreamy look in his eye as if this was reminding him of some great aspect of his youth.  
  
"We broke up sir, hence the ex part in my last sentence."  
  
"Oh? That's terrible, the staff had a poll running on if you'd make it to graduation, I'm afraid I lost."  
  
"It's nice to know you had so much faith in us dean Buckley. Uh may I have my jacket back please?"  
  
"Right, right, here you go." The dean past the coat over his desk "Don't mind the footprint, it should wipe right off."  
  
"Footprint?" Banks raised his eye brows causing them to vanish beneath his blonde bangs.  
  
"Yes, when Mr. Lincoln was attempting to get it off the branch it was stuck on, he accidentally knocked it to the ground. Come to think of it. I believe he mentioned it was Miss Epson that had stepped on it."  
  
'Damn you Carly.' Adam thought as he left the room and headed for the rink.  
  
Later that same day  
  
"Aren't you coming?" Emily looked over to her roommates side of the room rather surprised. Caroline was laying on her bed with the remote to their television in one hand and bag of pretzels in the other.  
  
"Coming where? Oh the game, no I don't think so." Carly sighed, flipping through the stations on the TV.  
  
"You're not seriously going to miss a game because you and Adam are fighting are you?" Em crossed her arms  
  
"No, I'm missing a game because Adam and I broke up. Besides I don't like hockey that much anyway."  
  
"Carly…"  
  
"I'll be fine, just go to the game, wish the team luck for me okay."  
  
"Fine." The blonde tossed her hands up with an exasperated groan an left the room.  
  
As Carly sat only in the silence of the other wise empty bedroom, her memories began to take over. She drifted to another place in time, a place where she felt that everything in life was as perfect as could be. Little did she know that, that idealness would lead in the future to the twist of events causing her so much pain now.  
  
~A tall fair-haired boy, dressed in an Eden Hall JV jacket, ran down the hallway after a swift moving Latino boy, the Latin boy holding an orange polo shirt and screaming.  
"As your friend Banks I can never let you where this again!"  
  
The new girl, a sophomore from Boston, stood at her locker and laughed at the racket.  
'Boys will be boys' She thought taking out her binder and the books she'd need to study from. Closing the locker she turned to start in the direction of the exit, but missed judged the time she'd have before the two boys reached where she was and one of them plowed right into her. Her books and papers were cast into the air and she fell flat on her back.  
  
"Excuse me, I'm so sorry, I'll help you pick all this up." The blonde boy offered his as the girl got up and his friend kept running. "You're Caroline Epson right?"   
  
"Yeah that's me, but it's Carly please. No one calls me Caroline." The girl extended her hand to take a stack of notes "And you are?"  
  
"Adam, Adam Banks." The boy smiled at her. He had an innocent grin, almost childlike, it drew Carly in and made her feel warm. She had been having that same effect on him for the week she'd been at Eden Hall, only it had been from a far. They didn't have any classes together, but the first time she'd walked into the cafeteria, he was lost. They highlights in her hair, the smooth chocolate color of her eyes, the subtlety of her makeup, everything.   
  
"Well it's nice to meet you Adam, of course it would've been nicer if you hadn't knocked me on my butt, but what are you gonna do?" Carly stuffed the last of her things into her book bag and stood and upon noticing the way he was staring at her, she asked "Is there something I can do for you?"  
  
"Huh? Oh no. I just wanted to welcome you to Eden Hall, I hope you like it here."  
  
"Thanks, I'm sure I will. Well I better get going, I've got tons of homework." Carly turned and began toward the door once more, before he tossed a smile over her shoulder and said "Oh and Adam, you can call me Caroline, if you want to."~ 


	10. How many babies?

A MONTH LATER  
  
Carly sat in the waiting room of her Minnesota OBGYN's office, twisting uncomfortably in her seat.  
  
"I wish Adam were here." She whispered, hoping the person sitting next to her wouldn't hear.  
  
Cat had been the only one of her friends that hadn't had plans that day since Charlie had detention, so the perky Brit had offered to go along. She knew it was going to hard for Carly to do things like doctors appointments and baby shopping alone.  
"Don't worry little baby, your aunt Cat is here, you wouldn't like your daddy anyway, he's a minger." She said quietly, patting Caroline's stomach.  
  
"Cat…" Carly started in a warning manner.  
  
"Okay, okay, I'm just saying. Anyway, I was talking to Griffon in Bio lab today."  
  
"You have my sympathy."  
  
"Do you want to hear this or not?" Cat asked sharply.  
  
"Not particularly. Oh alright." Carly conceded.  
  
"It seems that our Mr. Montgomery, has been completely filled in on your situation and is willing to take on the responsibility of someone else's kid, if it means he gets to be with you."  
  
"God, my life sounds like an after school special." The young mother groaned.  
  
"Yup, but it could be worse."  
  
"How?"  
  
"I dunno, but it could be."  
  
"Caroline Mia Epson?" The nurse called from the doorway.  
  
"That's me."  
  
"Right this way."  
  
Carly followed the nurse down the hallway, shaky and nervous. The women looked like she was in her late fifties or early sixties, she had a square set jaw, harsh icy voice and glaring eyes. All Carly wanted was for the women to say something that would set her mind at ease, but she didn't.  
  
"You're here for your first trimester sonogram?"  
  
"I am."  
  
"And how old are you?"  
  
"Seventeen and nine months."  
  
"Unmarried?"  
  
"Yeah." By then they had found an empty exam room and the nurse was busily looking for a robe fro Carly to change into.  
  
"In my day," She began, standing up from digging in a low cabinet. " if a girl was with child before marriage, she was sent away until after the baby was born and it was given to a good respectable family. If they didn't her entire family would be look down upon in the city, especially at church."  
  
"Well times have changed."  
  
"That they have, now undress and lay down." The nurse commanded.  
  
"That's what got me into this mess." Carly joked, the older women didn't laugh.  
  
"I'll go find the doctor." She said snidely and left the room.  
  
MEANWHILE  
  
"Hey, is this seat taken?" A seductive voice queried from behind Banks as he sat at a table in the library.  
  
"I'm really busy I've got a Trigonometry exam to study f--" He turned in his chair and noticed Carly's sultry older sister. "Mandy hi. Um if you're looking for Carly, I haven't seen her."  
  
"Well, if I was looking for my not so goody two shoes baby sister, I wouldn't be asking to sit here with you, now would I?" Amanda pulled out a seat and sat down next to him.  
  
"No, I guess not. So what have you been up to?"  
  
"Searching around this hopeless school for a moderately presentable date for the Halloween dance, but it seems all the sweet, smart, good looking, guys here are taken, gay or both. Well except you." She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. "Do you have a date Adam?"  
  
"I uh," The boy squirmed uneasily "I didn't plan on going."  
  
"Why not, don't tell me you don't like dances."  
  
"It's just, I've never been to one without Caroline in three years. I wouldn't feel right to go alone." Banksie ran his hand through his hair nervously.  
  
"Well rumor has it that our dear Caroline has decide to accept an invitation from Griffon Montgomery. Now I see no reason why you should lock yourself in you room that night, when I am willing attend the dance with you." Mandy ran her finger down her neck and stopped at the bottom of the v-neck of her low cut shirt. "What do you say?"  
  
"Um," Adam gulped "uh, okay, sure, I guess."  
  
"Great, it makes you feel better you can look at it as at least you're keeping it in the family. I'm off, talk ya later."  
  
BACK AT THE DOCTORS  
  
"Cat, it's worse." Carly stated, standing in front of her friend who looked up from the magazine she was reading.  
  
"What?" Cat shook her head confused.  
  
"You said earlier it could be worse, it is. TWINS! I'm having TWINS!"  
  
"Two babies?"  
  
"Yeah, I need food."  
  
At the restaurant Carly passed her credit card the waiter and sipped what was left of her orange cranberry juice. She couldn't believe she was having twins, that was going to even harder to tell Adam, then telling him she was pregnant in the first place, especially now that they were broken up. Cat however was having a great time with the idea.  
  
"See babies, I told you your daddy was a minger. He's not just giving up one adorable little one, he's missing out on two of you. Don't worry, when you born I'll help ya get kick his butt."  
  
"Cat, could you not corrupt my children, at least until after they're born." Carly smiled.  
  
"Ahem," A masculine throat draw the girls attention "Ms. Epson your credit card has been denied."  
  
"Denied, why?"  
  
"It's been cancelled, how do you wish to pay for your meal."  
  
"I… I don't have any cash on me." She panicked.  
  
"It's okay, relax, here." Cat quickly wrote out a check and ushered Carly out of the restaurant before she got so worked up she had the babies right there.  
  
"I'm really sorry Cat, I'll pay you back I swear." The pregnant girl babbled in the car.  
  
"It's okay Carly really, don't worry about it." Her friend told her.  
  
"No, look there's an ATM." Carly pulled the car over and hopped out. But instead of getting the money she was hoping for at the ATM, she was given a piece of paper that read, insufficient funds or account closed.  
  
That was jus too weird, so instead of heading back to school she pulled out her cell phone and called her parents immediately.  
  
"Hello?" A women's voice answered at the Epson home.  
  
"Mom?" Carly tried to hold in her dread.  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"Mom, it's Carly."  
  
"You must have the wrong number, I don't have a daughter named Carly and if I did, she wouldn't embarrass her family by getting knocked up while she was still in high school."  
  
Caroline felt her blood run cold  
"How'd you know I was pregnant?"  
  
"My real daughter Amanda notified my husband and I."  
  
"Why has my credit card been cancelled and my savings emptied?"  
  
"I told you, Caroline Epson is no longer my child, I saw no reason to continue providing money to her. You know what Caroline, maybe you should contact your birth parents, maybe they would be pleased to here their child is a trollop. Though, possibly this is all my fault, perhaps if we had never adopted you, you could be living in a trailer park right now spitting out kids with the rest of the neighborhood and nobody would even notice. I've got to go, I'm late for a charity benefit, goodbye."  
  
"But mom…" Carly was cut off by the click.  
  
"What's wrong?" Cat inquired from the passenger seat when she noticed her pal's tears.  
  
"My mother disowned me."  
  
"Oh Carly, you're her daughter, I'm sure she'll come around."  
  
"I'm not her daughter." Carly murmured.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"I'm adopted, I mean I've always known that, it's just she's never thrown it in my face like that before." She continued to bawl, her breath hitching and her stomach beginning to ache.  
  
"But you look just like them…"  
  
"I don't really, the red in my hair it's dye, I do it every two weeks, I have since I was ten. It's just lucky that I got a nose like my father, well like Larry, he's not my father. Oh god I don't know what I'm gonna do."  
  
"Shhh, it's okay, it'll be alright.: Cat wrapped her arms around the other girls shaking shoulders and tried to console her, all the while thinking 'I'll kill that Adam Banks.' 


	11. Journal Entries

Adam flopped onto his bed and opened his journal, he was never the type to read the things he had long since written, it seemed pointless to brood on things that were in the past. Still that day something was calling to him from the pages, so he began to go through it.  
  
It started with the first day of freshmen year and covered the entire time he'd been at Eden Hall until that day. There were sad entries, some smudged from tears that he could remember shedding the day he'd written, like when Hans died, then there were happy things, like when he made MVP and got to play in the All Star game. But of all the entries, one stood out above the rest in his mind.  
  
'Dec 10th,  
  
I finally got up the courage to ask Caroline out to dinner. We were sitting on the benches outside, near the music building talking, and watching the snow fall around us. Funny thing is, I don't think either of noticed the cold. I never notice anything when she's around, just her. She's all I ever think about.   
  
You know, if I hadn't been chasing Luis that day and never knocked Carly over, I don't think I ever would've gotten the nerve up to talk to her. Which is unbelievable when you think of how easy going she is. I could tell her I hated her and her mother smelled and she'd let roll off her back.  
  
Anyway, while we were watching the snow, a flake fell on her cheek and stayed there. It didn't melt, didn't slide off, it just stayed there. I took the back of my right hand and brushed it away. I was staring right into her dark eyes and it just popped out. "Will you go out with me tomorrow night?"   
  
She smiled and said "Of course I will." Just like that, no hesitation.  
  
I'm telling you journal, I'm so glad I got to know her over these past three months. I don't know what my life would be like without her.'  
  
Banks closed the journal and rolled over onto his back, now he knew what life was like without her, but it wasn't much of a life at all. But then, there wasn't really any hope for a life or future if he had stayed with her. He was just too young to be a daddy, too young and too full of dreams.  
  
'Dec 11th  
  
I just got back from my date with Carly. It wasn't at all like I thought it was going to be. I emptied my bank account to have the money to take her out. I got reservations at the Minnesota Club, thinking a well off girl like her would prefer lobster and prime rib over cheese burgers and hot dogs. She didn't.   
  
I got her room to pick her up and she was dressed jeans and an off white cashmere sweater and her hair was pulled back in a scrunchi. She had no jewelry on with the exception of a pair of garnet studs in her ears and a friendship bracelet she got from someone back in Boston. It was a little to casual for what I had in mind, but I didn't want to make her feel like she looked bad, especially if she was one of those girls that took four hours to pick out an outfit.   
  
So I helped her on with her coat and we went out to meet the taxi. I had thought that taking a cab would be more to her liking then riding the bus, but again I screwed up.  
Before we went to dinner, I had the taxi bring us to the Museum, I thought a little culture would be a nice sophisticated way to start the night. Wrong answer, Carly looked like she was going to fall asleep while we walked around the exhibits. So I led her back outside and hailed another cab.  
  
Caroline didn't seem to be having a good time at all and by the time we were seated in the restaurant I was certain I'd made a mistake asking her out.  
"You're not having a good time are you?"   
  
She bit her lip and sighed "Not really, I'm kinda bored."   
  
I nodded thinking 'Great, I blew it.'   
  
However Carly just smiled and said "I know ritzy kids like us are suppose to like this sorta thing, but I don't. Give me a pizza and a bottle of soda and I'm fine. You're not actually into this snotty shit are you Adam?"   
  
Yeah she swore, in a fancy restaurant. Normally that would've been a complete turn off, but then I loved it. It proved that she was a real girl, not just another one of those Eden Hall debutants. It was great, a girl that would fit in fantastically with my friends, yet well bred so my parents would like her, and I was positive I loved her. Things couldn't have worked out better.  
  
"No, honestly I just did this whole thing because I thought that's what you wanted." I replied  
  
"Good, then let's think. If you were one of your friends from the hockey team, not the son of a wealthy couple, where would we be going?"  
  
"Mickey's, that's where Charlie's mom works, they've got the best cheese fries."  
  
"Let's go then." She hopped out of her chair, pulled me out of my seat and we were out of there before we even got the chance to look at menus.   
  
The next thing I know we're sitting in a booth at the diner eating food covered in layers of grease and laughing like idiots. I'll tell you journal, I think I've found the girl I want to marry one day.'  
  
A tear trickled the length of his cheek as he shut the book with a slam. What had happened to the boy that had written that three years ago? What had happened to the spark that use to between he and the that girl? Mostly what had happened to the mutual adoration they so obviously shared for each other?  
  
At the time he'd written those entries, he never could've pictured Carly taking an invitation to spend time with Griffon. Or he himself agreeing to go with anyone, especially her sister to a dance. But if she was going to move on, to give up, then so would he. Sometimes love just isn't worth the pain. 


	12. Monster Mash

"It's no use guys, none of this stuff is going to fit. You were all smaller then me before I was three months pregnant." Carly sighed, looking at the pile of clothes her friends had donated as possible costumes for the Halloween dance.  
  
"Did you try the purple overalls?" Delilah asked holding up a splotch of lavender corduroy.   
  
"I did." Carly nodded.  
  
"And?"  
  
"Let's just say they'll only work if I want to go as Barney the dinosaur."  
  
"Maybe you could go as a punk rocker, I bet Dean or Fulton would let you barrow some of their clothes." Samantha suggested.  
  
"Have I sunk that low, I have to loan clothes from the two biggest players on the team?"  
  
Connie raised her hand like a kindergartener waiting to be called on.  
"You could wear my hockey jersey, it's pretty big, it has to be to fit over my pads."  
  
"Or mine it's even bigger." Julie chimed in.  
  
"Nope," Caroline declared throwing herself backwards on the bed. "I have the perfect idea, I'll just stay in the room tonight and catch up on my game shows."  
  
"Carly, there is no way you're missing this dance." Cat told her bluntly.  
  
"Look guys, it starts in and hour and I don't want to make you late, especially you Del, when's Luke getting here?" Carly referred to Delilah's Heath Ledger look a like boyfriend, that had graduated the year before and was now attended college in Michigan.   
  
The curly haired blonde looked down at her watch and quickly hop up from the floor.  
"Twenty minutes, I've gotta go start getting ready."  
  
"Yes you do, you all do, so everyone that doesn't bunk in here, out, out , out." The girl shoed all her friends but Emily out and closed her door.  
  
"So what's the real reason you're avoiding the dance?" Em asked walking to the closet and pulling out her out fit.  
  
"Because I don't have a costume." Carly answered blandly.  
  
"Carly, come on now, how stupid do you take me as? You're not going because you refuse have any fun without Banks."  
  
"That's ludicrous Em."  
  
"Is it?"  
  
"Yes." Carly groaned, rolling over.  
  
Carly kept her back to Emily pretending she'd fallen asleep, until she heard the sound of the door closing and her roommate leaving. She rolled back over and looked around her empty room, really wishing she was going to the dance. Carly was the type of person that loved to party and being social, but something in her mind kept telling her she didn't deserve to have a good time.  
  
Banks walked into the gym and took a quick look around, not catching so much as a glimpse of his ex-girlfriend. He really hadn't expected Carly to be there, despite Amanda's rumor of her sister going with Griffon. It just didn't make sense to him, Carly had always called Griffon a pain in the ass, but then losing the one you love did do strange things to people. It had driven him to go to that dance in a ridiculous JFK costume, because Amanda was determined to be Marilyn Monroe.  
  
"I'm going to run to the ladies' room and check my makeup before I start mingling, I'll be right back." Mandy kissed his cheek and went off toward the bathroom.  
  
Banksie smiled at her as she walked away and then instantly he put the serious look back on his face, as he continued to search for Carly.  
  
"She's not coming Banks." He heard a friendly voice behind him.   
  
Adam turned to see a petite girl dressed up like Tinkerbell and a Peter Pan beside her.  
"Oh, hey Delilah. Who's not coming?"  
  
"Carly, Emily said she went to bed, so there's no use looking for her."  
  
"I wasn't looking for her." Banks lied.  
  
"Sure you weren't. Look I don't know what's going with you right now, but it's obvious to anyone with eyes you still have feelings for her. Just get over whatever's going on in your head and patch things up."  
  
"Adam, who's this?" Amanda walked up nest to him and slipped her arm around his.  
  
"Mandy, hi, I didn't hear you come back, uh this is a friend of mine Delilah Butters and the guy in the tights behind her his her boyfriend Luke." Banksie introduced her.  
  
"Nice to meet you." Del stuck out her hand.  
  
"Charmed." Mandy said snootily, using her free hand to tap Adam on the chest, completely ignoring Delilah's out stretched hand. "Let's dance sweetie."  
  
"Yeah, okay. Talk to you later Del, nice seeing you Luke." Banks waved allowing his date to pull him away.  
  
Twenty minutes later a dark haired girl entered the gym dressed in her pajamas, fuzzy slippers on her feet. In the crowded room she searched for faces she recognized, and eventually found a group within the groups, people that seemed to be oblivious to the rest of the congregation. Carly knew those were her friends.  
  
She crossed the gymnasium and pushed her way through the dancers, finally reaching the Ducks. He had to admit the array of costumes they had chosen were slightly amusing to her. Samantha and Portman had gone as Pocahontas and John Smith, Emily and Luis went as JRR Tolkien's Aragorn and Eowyn and Charlie was Batman with Cat as his Cat-Women.  
  
"Cat-Women Cat, not very clever." She joked admiring the other girls tight leather jump suit. "But it looks good."  
  
Cat rolled her eyes beneath her mask and sighed.  
"It was Charlie's idea, personally I think he just wanted to wear that rubber suit. So what are you doing here? I thought you weren't coming."  
  
"I was thinking and I decided the best way for me to get over everything is by trying to live, I wasn't doing that sitting in my room. So here I am, hopefully it'll take my mind off things." Carly smiled, then as her eyes continued to scan the gym to take in the decorations and see other peoples costumes, then she noticed a couple sitting a few yards away. The boy was sitting on the chair and the girl was straddling his lap, practically drowning him in kisses. "Ugh, someone needs to tell the president and Ms. Monroe to get a room."  
  
"Yeah…" Samantha agreed, not knowing what exactly else to say.  
  
"Who do they think they are, anyway? You know what I'm going to tell them to knock that shit off, nobody wants to see that." Before anyone could get so much as a 'no wait.' she was on her way.  
  
Carly stormed across the room and tapped the girl on the shoulder, Marilyn lifted her head from Kennedy's neck and Carly's mouth dropped.  
"Amanda…" She gasped.  
  
"Hey baby sister, here I'd like you to meet my date." She gestured to Adam. "Oh that's right, you already know each other." She smiled smugly.  
  
"My sister Adam?" Caroline tried to keep her voice level. "Don't you have a heart, do you even have a soul?"  
  
"Oh Caroline, you're not upset are you? I thought for sure you'd want Adam to at least keep it in the family."  
  
Carly shot Banks a dirty look and still he said nothing to her. So she bit her lip, walked over to the refreshment table, grabbed a glass of punch and proceeded to dump in down the front of Mandy's white dress and letting it dribble into a sticky pink stain on Adam's crotch. Then she ran off in a stream of tears.  
  
She was hutched in a ball, in the very back corner of the room, crying harder then she had in weeks, when one of her favorite songs began to play in the speakers beside her. The only problem was, the singer had an unusual Southern drawl.  
"They read you Cinderella, you hoped it would come true, that one day your prince charming would come rescue you. You like romantic movies and you never fill forget, the way you felt when Romeo kissed Juliet." She lifted her head and there in front of her was Griffon Montgomery, dressed in a suit of armor and holding a microphone. He dropped to his knees in front of her and took one of her hands. "And all this time that you've been waiting, you don't have to wait no more. I could love you like that, I would make you my world, give heaven and Earth if you were my girl."  
"Griffon…" Carly began but he placed his finger to her lips.  
  
"Caroline Epson, I love you, I've been in love with you since the day I met you and if you'll let me, I'll be your knight in shining armor till the day I die. Will you just give me one chance?"  
  
Carly blinked back the tears in her eyes and swallowed the huge lump that had formed in her throat and nodded feverishly. Griffon's face took on the worlds biggest smile as he picked her up and spun her around. It was time to start over. 


	13. In a pool of blood

It's was late January and snow was blanketing the campus. Adam Banks stood at his room window, watching as boxes were carried out of the girls dorm and loaded into a hand full of cars scattered in the Senior parking lot. Emily, Charlie and Portman's cars to be exact. The various boxes, were filled with things belonging to Carly. A modest house on a suburban street in Duluth, waited for those boxes and the girl that owned them. As Banks watched them fill the cars, he couldn't help but think of how final it all seemed.  
  
He'd received a call from his father the day before, congratulating him on sticking to his decision for him future. His entire life Adam had wanted to hear 'I'm proud of you son.' he'd looked for it, gone out of his way to earn it. The one time Philip Banks had actually brought himself to utter those five words, was the one time Adam wished he hadn't. The one time he wished he'd gone against his fathers rule. He knew he did wrong, knew he gave up something worth so much more then a scholarship and an NHL contract. He wanted so badly to go back to that night and tell Caroline he was sorry and take her in his arms. But it was too late. His future, the only future that really mattered was set to marry another man and take his two unborn twins with her.  
A moderately priced three bedroom, two bath, two story house on a suburban street in Duluth had been a birthday gift for the girl from Griffon. It would be the perfect place for a young couple to start their live together. They would build a future and family within the walls of that home. A future and a life that Adam wouldn't be part of.   
  
He left his room without even closing the door and climbed the stairs to floor reserved for students not there on scholarship. The door with the tarnished brass numbers 417, was closed, but the loud rap music playing from within meant there was at least one of the rooms occupants inside. Adam paced in front of the door for a good five minutes before working himself enough to knock, finally however he did. When it swung open Emily's exboyfriend Evan was on the other side.  
  
"Well if it isn't Adam Banks, the sperminator." The other boy laughed upon seeing the preppy hockey player standing in the hall.  
  
"Evan, uh, is Griffon in there, I need to talk to him." Banksie exhaled hard, causing his button lip to vibrate.  
  
"What makes you think Griffon's in here?"  
  
"It is his room isn't it?"  
  
"Yeah, so?" Evan leaned on the door frame causally. "How do you know he's not out with your baby's mama?"  
  
Adam gritted his teeth and tried to hold in his anger.  
"Look Evan, I don't have time to play around, is Griffon here or not?"  
  
"Yeah, hold on." A few seconds after Em's ex disappeared back into the room, a medium height blonde, with a southern accent emerged.  
  
"Hey Adam, I didn't expect to be seeing you. What can do for ya?" Griffon began with a snide smile.  
  
"Griffon, it's no secret that we don't like each other. I mean it's sort of common knowledge that we hate each other. But this isn't the time to leave things unsaid." Adam started.  
  
"Gee Banks, here I was thinkin' we were the best of friends, now you've gone and broke my heart."  
  
"Can the sarcasm Montgomery, I'm not here to bicker with you. All I'm here to do is ask and warn you of some things."  
  
"Warn me?" The other boy raised his eyebrows.  
  
"That's right, warn you. I'm going to ask you to provide for my children and to love them like your own. Take care of them and Carly, make sure all three of them have everything they need. And to warn you that if you fail, I will hunt you down like the dog you are. If you break her heart, if you make one unhappy tear fall from Caroline's beautiful brown eyes, you'll regret it, I'll make you regret it."  
  
"Don't worry Banks, I think a girl's heart can only be truly broken once in a life time. From what I hear, you already did that. Now if you'll excuse me, my fiancé and I are moving off campus today." With that Griffon stalked off leaving Banks alone in the corridor.  
MEANWHILE IN THE GIRLS' DORM  
  
"I can't believe you're moving out, this room's going to be so lonely without you." Emily declared throwing herself on her bed as Carly folded a sweater and stuffed it into a suitcase.  
  
"She's right Carly, who's going to tell us our choice in music sucks, or roll their eyes every time we mention Justin Timberlake?" Cat added, from where she was loading Caroline's CD collection into a box.  
  
"I didn't exactly have a choice in the matter guys, dean Buckley was pretty clear about his thoughts. Being the fiancé of one of wealthiest boy's here, not to mention my position as assistant Editor to the school paper, puts in the eye of a lot of people. Teen pregnancy just isn't something the board wants to run ramped here." Carly explained.  
  
"It's not like the female student body is going to run out and get knocked up to follow your example Car." Delilah interjected.  
  
"Besides Carly, you're getting married, you're doing the right thing. Granted you're not marrying the father but it's something. I mean if Dean and I were in your situation, I wouldn't let them scare me into leaving school." Samantha added.  
  
"They're not scaring me into leaving. I'll be coming for classes until the end of the term and I'm going to complete the semester at night school after the babies are born. Griffon and I already talked it out, he knows my education is important to me." Caroline told her friends.  
  
"So he bought you a house, a gorgeous engagement ring, is willing to raise someone else's kids and is going to let you finish school?" Emily queried.  
  
"That's the plan."  
  
Del sighed and pulled a handful of curls back in a scrunchi.  
"Does he seem to good to be true, to anyone else?"  
  
"You're just paranoid Delilah." Sam replied.  
  
"You just want her to get back with that minger Adam Banks." Cat added.  
  
"Well since that's not gonna happen guys, what do you say we get the rest of this stuff down to the cars and me to my new house?" Carly smiled tugging on her jacket, the rest of the girls following her lead and exiting the room with the last of the boxes in hand.  
  
LATER THAT DAY  
"Dean and I are going to get going so you and Griffon can be alone." Samantha told her best friend after the rest of the group had gone leaving an almost completely unpacked home.  
  
"Alright, thanks Sam." Carly hugged the pretty dark haired girl. "Thank you too Portman."  
  
"No problem Carly, you know you're not just Banks' ex, you're our friend too, so if you ever need anything…" The Bash Brother trailed off.  
  
"Okay." Carly hugged him too. "Forgive me for being rude, but I've gotta get this box up to the bathroom before I forget and there's no toilet paper up there when we need it."  
  
Samantha and Portman laughed and headed toward the door as Caroline began up the steps to the second floor. Suddenly her shoes, slippery with snow gave way and she tumbled down the flight of stairs, landing with a thud at the bottom. When Sam raced over to her after hearing the fall, the girl was unconscious and laying on her stomach with a pool of blood forming under her head. 


	14. Hospital

Adam slammed on the brakes and raced out off the BMW. His pulse beating at a triple pace as he ran into the hospital. He skidded to a stop in the waiting room and nearly toppled over.  
  
"Where… where… is she?" He panted.  
  
"She's in there." Emily pointed to set of doors across from them.  
  
Sam nodded.  
"They're keeping her for observation, but she should be okay. Griffon's in there with her now."  
  
"So you guys had me rush down here for no reason?" Banks began to sound more angry now then worried.  
  
"Not really Banks, there's other reasons we needed you here. Two other reasons to be exact." Charlie said in his most captain like tone.  
  
"The twins… oh my god where are they? Are they okay?"  
  
"They're in the neonatal intensive care unit. That's why we had to call you Adam. The doctors can't perform any sort of a procedure without consent of their legal guardian." Delilah explained.  
  
"Well then why couldn't Caroline do it?" Adam looked at them confused.  
  
"She's so doped from having the babies, she can barely say her name let alone sign it Banks." Portman told him.  
  
"Where's the neonatal ward?"  
  
"I'll show you." Delilah volunteered.  
  
The two stop in front of a sheet of glass, that enclosed a handful bassinets, in a brightly lit room. In two cribs off in the back lay two tiny little girl babies. Their incubators weren't lovingly decorated like the rest, it was almost as if they didn't have caring family. A nurse that looked no more then tree years older then the Ducks appeared in the corridor with a wary smile.  
  
"Hello, can I help you two with something?" The women asked.  
  
Banks stood there, struggling to find words, looking through the glass at the small preemies. Luckily Delilah was there, talking never being hard for her.  
"He needs to fill out the consent of treatment form on his daughters."  
  
"Oh, you must be the twins father, we've been waiting for you. I'm afraid we've been referring to them as baby A and baby B, I suppose you have names picked." The nurse led Adam into the room, Del having to stay in the hallway since she wasn't a parent.  
  
His breath caught in his lungs as Banksie walked over to the babies, yellow with jaundice and tubes coming from their nose and mouth. They were so small, so sick looking, it hurt to see them. Just the day before they hadn't meant a thing to him, but at that moment all he wanted to do was rip them off the live support and hold them in his arms.  
  
"McKenzie, and um Mikayla. Mac and Mickey, that's what their mother and I decided on months ago."  
  
"Middle names, last names?"  
  
"I'm not sure, uh, I dunno, Rose, both of them. As for a last name, can we just wait for their mother to give them that?"  
  
"I suppose we can. Let me just get the forms."   
  
After the papers were filled out, Adam went back to the ER, the rest of the group had all left, with the exception of Griffon, who was sitting on one of the couches in tears.  
  
"Montgomery?" Banks had been undetected and his voice made the Georgian jump.  
  
"Banks." The other boy swallowed his tears and sat up straight.  
  
"Caroline? What happened is she alright?" Banksie panicked.  
  
"She's fine, she's perfect and she wants you. She's been calling for you all night. The doctor said it could be just a side effect from being knocked out for the c-section, but the drugs have to worn off by now. I've given her everything, I've loved her for years and still it's you she wants." Griffon got up and smoothed the creases out of pants. "So now it's my turn to warn you, if you don't go in there and hold her, I won't be responsible for what I do."  
  
As Griffon's back retreated down the hall Adam started toward the door to Carly's room and stopped. Would he go in, should he go in, could he go in? 


	15. I'll walk away

Carly's senses were acutely heightened as she lay there in her hospital bed. She could feel  
each individual thread in the sheets, hear every drip of her IV, taste all the separate  
element in her blood and if she opened her eyes she'd be able to count the particles in the  
air. When the door to her hospital room squeaked open, she clenched her eyes closed  
tighter in an attempt to look like she were sleeping. That was until her nose picked up a  
familiar smell, one that was ten time intensified. Banks' cologne brought her out of her  
medicated stooper.  
  
"Adam...?" Her voice was raspy and hoarse, her throat feeling like she'd swallowed a  
porcupine.  
  
"Yeah Carly, it's me." At the sound of his voice her lids flew up.  
  
"What... what are you doing in here?"  
  
Banksie lowered himself into the chair beside her bed, uncomfortably chewing on his lip.  
"I wanted to see you, I wanted to make sure you were okay."  
  
"I'll be fine, just a slight concussion, split lip and cut on my forehead." The girl lifted her  
bangs to reveal the small bandage just below her hair line. "It's the twins we have to worry  
about. Are they all right, have you seen them?"  
  
"I have..." The boy nodded "they're uh, they're on life support."  
  
A tear dripped off the end of Carly's face, rolling down her neck and into oblivion,  
followed by many more. Her head swum, her stomach ached and she couldn't help but  
cry. It was such a helpless feeling to know the one thing most important in your life was  
fading and you can do nothing to stop it.  
  
"What am I going to do? How am I...?"  
  
"Shhh, it'll be okay, everything will be okay." Adam reached over and squeezed the girl's  
shaking hand.   
  
As the tears continued to flow from her dark brown eyes Carly managed.  
"My girls are sick Adam, our girls. How can you not be worried?"   
  
"Look at me, Caroline Mia Epson look at me right now." Banks lifted her chin and forced  
her to look him in the face. "I know the girl will be all right, I know this because they're  
fighters, just like their mother. They will get through this and we will get through this  
together..."  
  
"Together? I thought you made you mind up months ago, I thought you decided we were  
over."  
  
"I did some thinking Carly and I realized a life without you, isn't a life at all. I know I  
messed up, I wasn't there when you needed me most and I really screwed up when  
Amanda got involved, but I love you. That's something that will never stop no matter  
what. You never know what you have until it's gone and when Delilah called me last night  
and told me you were in here, I must have broken the sound barrier. I thought I lost you  
for good, then I saw the babies in the neonatal ICU, I came to the conclusion that you  
three are worth more to me then 20 Stanford scholarships or NHL contracts. Still if you  
ask me to walk out of this room right now, I will, I'll do it because that's what you want.  
But I promise you I will not stop loving you, I want to be a part of your life and of   
Mackenzie and Mikalya's..."  
  
"Mackenzie and Mikayla?" Carly cut him off.  
  
"The twins, the nurse wanted me to name them, I remembered that we agreed on  
Mackenzie and Mickey and well Mickey turned out to be a girl so Mikayla. I didn't give  
them a last name, I didn't know which you wanted them to have." Banks explained. "If it's  
not to late, I'd like them to be Banksess. I want to start our family."  
  
"Adam, I'm engaged." She held up her hand for emphasis, but no ring sat on her finger.  
Griffon had taken it off while she slept the night before, calling for her former beau. "What  
am I going to do about Griffon?"  
  
"I've made myself perfectly clear, you know how I feel, but I can't make the choices for  
you. I'll leave now and let you decide." Banks kissed her salty tear streaked cheek and left  
the room, Carly more confused then ever. 


	16. Man and wife

Carly stood in front of the mirror in Samantha's room, while Emily and Cat bounced the now four month old twins on their knees. She folded her hands and exhaled hard at her reflection. A piece of beautiful Italian lace was pinned to her newly cut hair and a simple strapless white dress clung to her young body. It was her wedding day.  
  
"Do you guys think I'm making the right decision?" She asked wiping a nonexistent lint ball off the front of her dress.  
  
"It's a little late to be changing your mind Carly." Emily laughed "Besides, it's only natural for you to get cold feet."  
  
"Yeah, if I was marrying to guy you're marrying, I'd be getting cold feet too." Cat teased.  
  
"I'm serious guys, what if I'm making a mistake, what if I made the wrong choice?" The bride paced nervously.  
  
"What's there to be wrong about? He's got a great future ahead of him, he loves you, and he's got beautiful blue eyes." Del spoke up, pulling the sides of her long curls back with barrettes.  
  
"So does my other option."  
  
Samantha put down the lipstick she was applying and looked worriedly at her friend.  
"Carly do you want to call the wedding off? If you do I'll go out to the back right now and let everyone know."  
  
"No Sam, Em's right, it's probably just cold feet. I love this man and I'm going to marry him."  
  
"Well, it that case, let's get the show on the road."  
  
"Okay."  
  
Samantha walked to her door and opened it, yelling down to her mother to come up and take Mikayla and Mackenzie. When the older women entered her jaw dropped at how lovely her surrogate daughter looked. She couldn't have been prouder of the teen if she'd been her mother.  
"Oh Caroline, you look breath taking."  
  
"Thank you Mrs. Wyatt, and thank you so much for letting us have the wedding here." Carly replied starting to get teary eyed.  
  
"Now don't you start crying young lady. Give me those babies, I'll go tell the minister we're about to get underway." Mrs. Wyatt kissed Carly's cheek and picked up the twins, leaving the room.  
  
Carly took one last look at the girls that were set to be her bridal party. They were all wearing matching dresses of soft blue and had tiny with flowers in their hair. It made the bride happy to know her friends were there to support her, when not one member of her family was. She'd sent out invitations to everyone, no one had showed. Carly however had expected that, she knew her family was all about appearances, looking like the approved of their teenage daughter's wedding was not an appearance they wanted.  
  
When the RSVPS started rolling in Carly would check the mailbox religiously. Never to find one from someone she'd invited. After three weeks of that she come to the conclusion she was no longer an Epson, not that she had ever really been one to begin with. It was times like that made her think about her birth parents and feel alone, even with all her friends around her.  
  
Caroline stopped highlighting her soft brown hair, the way she'd done for years. She didn't need to look like she fit in with that relatives anymore, the auburn streaks that had made her match Amanda and her mother, were unnecessary now. She even had it cut to get rid of any red reminisce that lingered, she was removing all ties to her old relations. She was the mother now and that was what she had to think about.  
  
And as she took one final glance at her reflection in the hallway mirror as the girls set out to the back yard, she wondered what her biological mother would've thought. Would she have shunned her too, or welcomed the new son-in-law to the family? Perhaps the women had found herself in the same situation eighteen years earlier. Had being a teenage mother forced Carly's real mom into giving her up for adoption at birth, maybe she'd been forced into it by her own cruel parents. But as she thought Carly realized, she was making the right decision. Her girls would be raised in a home with a loving mother and father, that would never let them down.  
  
Carly stood at the end of the walkway gazing at that guests seated in white chairs on either side of the path. The sweet aroma of the garden flowers swirled around her, intoxicating her, it was the perfect setting for the mid April ceremony. A small bouquet of yellow roses and daisies clutched tightly as her eyes followed her bride's maid and maid of honor down the makeshift aisle. In a Gazebo at the end stood a tall boy with golden hair, sparkling blue eyes and an anxious smile. Drawing one last quivery, nervous breath she started down toward him too the notes of 'Here Comes The Bride'.  
  
She stopped beside the groom and squeezed his hand, blinking back the tears that were already starting to form just glimpsing at him. He truly was her soul mate, always had been, even if they hadn't always seen it. Once the girl nodded to the reverend he began the ceremony.  
  
"Dearly beloved we are gathered here today to join this man and this women in holy matrimony. If there is anyone that has just cause why these two people should not be married let them speak now or forever hold their peace." When no one spoke up he continued. At the end of the service, after allowing the kiss and pronouncing them man and wife, the clergyman declared. "I present to you, Mr. and Mrs. Adam Jonathon Banks."  
  
THE END  
Adam and Carly moved into a married student dorm at Stanford after graduation that year. Carly had got to finish at Eden Hall, thanks to early delivery of the twins so she too got to go to college. As a wedding present Griffon had given them a check for five thousand dollars, to be used to pay for child care so Caroline could go to school. Four years later she left a local community college with a degree in journalism, Adam graduated from Stanford with one in engineering. Things had been tough for those forty eight months, but they made it through. Before they knew it they were leaving the dorm to move again. This time for Florida, where a new expansion team was drafting young players. Adam sighed his contract with the Tamp Bay Lightning on Mickey and Mac's fifth birthday. Sometimes you can have it all. 


End file.
